A 20-year-old Little Rock man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting a woman celebrating her 20th birthday who had been quarreling with his sister over Facebook.
Sentencing papers filed Friday show Carl Lee Rodgers pleading guilty to first-degree battery and unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle in exchange for the 20-year term. He faced up to 40 years in prison. Each charge is a Class B felony that carries a 20-year maximum. His plea was negotiated by deputy prosecutor Nicole Paladino and Public Defender Lisa Walton.
Rodgers has been jailed since his February 2020 arrest, a week after Asia Lacy was shot during a late-night incident at the The Summit at Geyer Springs apartments, 5201 Geyer Springs Road.
Lacy had turned 20 the day before, and she was at her sister's apartment for her birthday party. Lacy was shot after she, her sister and others had gone outside to confront some women they had been arguing with over Facebook Live.
Her sister, 20-year-old Ayanna Nicole Lacy, told police that during the party, they had been on Facebook Live when an argument broke out over the social media platform with Rodgers' sister, Destinie Niche Hall, 23.
Ayanna Lacy told police that Hall had broadcast threats over Facebook, stating that Hall was going to get her brother and that they were going to come to them and "shoot it up," while also showing her and two other women in a car with Hall driving and a man in the back seat, court filings show.
Further, Ayanna Lacy said Hall called her and told her that she was coming. A couple of hours later, partygoers on Ayanna Lacy's apartment balcony told her that Hall was in a car in the parking lot. Ayanna Lacy said that when she went out to look, Hall yelled for them to come down.Ayanna Lacy said she told Hall no and that when she turned to go back into her apartment, a man in the car started shooting, wounding Asia Lacy in the buttocks with the bullet perforating her colon.
Investigators were initially unsure of the identities of the other people in the car but using witness descriptions and Facebook photographs determined them to be Little Rock sisters, 22-year-old Jasmine Lashay Jenkins and Taira Rosby, 19.
In their version of events, they described the Lacy sisters as having made provocative remarks on Facebook, so the decision was made to go with Hall to confront them. Jenkins and Rosby told police that they rode with Hall to the apartments, where Hall called on Ayanna Lacy to come down to the parking lot to face them. Rosby told police that she had expected there to be a fistfight, and both sisters said everyone else in the car was surprised when Rodgers started shooting, telling police that they did not know he had a gun, court filings show. Police also wanted to question Hall but said they could not find her.
Questioned by police, Rodgers denied any role in the shooting, saying he had been in the car with his sister and the others when the gunfire broke out. However, in a recording of a phone call from jail after his arrest, Rodgers can be heard telling an unidentified woman to give his weapon to someone, and she responds by saying, "I got rid of everything," court records show.
Asia Lacy has been shot before. In December 2014, two days after Christmas, Lacy, about a month from her 15th birthday, was wounded in the leg in an attack on the family home on Stevenson Road that killed her stepfather, 37-year-old Troy Lee Holmes.
His killer, 24-year-old Michael "Fat Mike" Mitchell, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree battery in December 2018 in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence.
Mitchell did not know Holmes but was friends with a woman involved in a custody dispute with Holmes' nephew. He and two others had gone to Holmes' residence to take the child, court filings show. Mitchell started shooting after Holmes demanded that Mitchell's group leave.